entr vs watchdog

entr

A utility for running arbitrary commands when files change. Uses kqueue(2) or inotify(7) to avoid polling. entr responds to file system events by executing command line arguments or by writing to a FIFO. entr was written to provide to make rapid feedback and automated testing natural and completely ordinary. (by clibs)

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watchdog

Python library and shell utilities to monitor filesystem events. (by gorakhargosh)

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entr		watchdog
	Project
5	Mentions	15
593	Stars	6,276
0.5%	Growth	-
5.6	Activity	7.9
7 months ago	Latest Commit	3 months ago
C	Language	Python
GNU General Public License v3.0 or later	License	Apache License 2.0

The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

entr

Posts with mentions or reviews of entr. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2022-10-05.

how to run command in vim terminal automatically?
1 project | /r/vim | 8 Feb 2023

You could look into entr.
Watchman: Execute a command when something changes
13 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 5 Oct 2022

Not sure what generated interest in this.
This was a project I did for my personal use case. But I haven't been using it since years. I'd recommend [entr](https://github.com/clibs/entr) for the use case watchman was to serve.
How to automatically run a command when directory updates?
3 projects | /r/commandline | 13 Sep 2022

entr is what I usually reach for when I want to monitor a directory or a list of files and then perform some action on them when changes occur
Show HN: Pystitcher – A Declarative Alternative to Pdftk
4 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 30 Dec 2021

I've tested it against a 800 page compilation and didn't face any issues : https://github.com/captn3m0/pdp-book
It's obviously not fast enough for live-recompilations with very large projects, but for smaller projects I've run it against entr[0], and it was pretty good.
[0]: https://github.com/clibs/entr

watchdog

Posts with mentions or reviews of watchdog. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-09-10.

Unexpected Expected Thriller: A Tale of Coding Curiosity
4 projects | dev.to | 10 Sep 2023

Today, I'm going to take you on a thrilling coding adventure inspired by a LinkedIn code snippet, where I tangled with FastAPI, River, Watchdog, and Tenacity. Ready? Buckle up!
Observe WebserverFolder with local python script
1 project | /r/learnpython | 7 May 2023

If the server is receiving the files, why don't you have it initializing the required routines? However, if that's not possible for whatever reason, there are libraries to watch the file system for changes, eg. watchdog.
I look for a light solution to auto reload my asyncio python script
2 projects | /r/learnpython | 4 Mar 2023

I have looked https://github.com/gorakhargosh/watchdog but I would like to know if other tools would be more suitable.
Best way to format Comments and Docstrings? All help would be massively appreciated!
2 projects | /r/learnpython | 28 Oct 2022
Watchman: Execute a command when something changes
13 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 5 Oct 2022

Also not to be confused with watchdog and it's command watchmedo, which is what I thought this was when I first read the headline. I don't know what the differences are, but I use this to restart my local celery workers when I make changes. It's scripted out so I don't ever use the command directly.
https://pypi.org/project/watchdog/
https://github.com/gorakhargosh/watchdog
Monitor Django's media directory to detect new files
1 project | /r/django | 6 Sep 2022

I was thinking of using watchdog library, but for some reason i feel like if it is not a good option,
Echo to file results in two watchdog modified events
1 project | /r/learnpython | 20 Jun 2022

I think this has been a bug for a while:https://github.com/gorakhargosh/watchdog/issues/346
PyNotify: An asyncio interface to the Linux inotify API
3 projects | /r/Python | 30 Apr 2022

Watchdog is another similar package OP might find inspiration in. It works with inotify and the windows and macos counterparts. https://github.com/gorakhargosh/watchdog
Any thoughts on using watchdog for checking if a video file has been fully rendered?
1 project | /r/learnpython | 25 Nov 2021
Run Python script as a service
1 project | /r/learnpython | 17 Sep 2021

What are some alternatives?

When comparing entr and watchdog you can also consider the following projects:

watchman - Watches files and records, or triggers actions, when they change.

python-magic - A python wrapper for libmagic

watchexec - Executes commands in response to file modifications

pathlib

fswatch - A cross-platform file change monitor with multiple backends: Apple OS X File System Events, *BSD kqueue, Solaris/Illumos File Events Notification, Linux inotify, Microsoft Windows and a stat()-based backend.

PyFilesystem2 - Python's Filesystem abstraction layer

reflex - Run a command when files change

path.py - Object-oriented file system path manipulation

pikepdf - A Python library for reading and writing PDF, powered by QPDF

Unipath - An object-oriented approach to Python file/directory operations.

WatchMod - Watch for modifications to trigger actions. Useful for compiling Go templates, Sass, Typescript, and more.

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